^^^ 




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ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN INSTITUTE 



OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 



BROADWAY TABERNACLE, OCTOBER 17, 1845, 



DURING THE 



€igt)t£entl) Annual iTair. 



Hon. T. D. ELIOT, 

Of New-Bedford, Mas». 



-^y. 



JAMES VAN NORDEN & CO., PRINTERS, 
No. 60 William-street. 

18 4 6. 






m 






ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN INSTITUTE 



OF THE CITY OF NE.\/V-YORK, 



BROADWAY TABERNACLE, OCTOBER 17, 1845, 



DURING THE 



(Kigljteentl) Annual ifair* 



BY THE 



Hon. T. D. E L I O T, 

Of New-Bedford, Mats. 



JAMES VAN NORDEN & CO., PRINTERS, 

No. 60 WlLLUM-STREET. 

1845. 






> 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen or the Institute : 

There is in the history of the past, this suggestive custom re- 
corded ; — In one of the cities of Peleponnesus at certain times all the 
inhabitants assembled. 'I'hey divided themselves into three large 
companies, of the aged, the mature, and the young. Each had its 
speaker. When they had gone in procession through the streets 
of the city, and before yet the games began, a scenic exhibition 
was prepared, in which each company took part. 

And first came forward the old men, whose years were well nigh 
numbered. They had fought their fight. The toil of life and all 
its honours, were things of memory. The high endeavour, the 
reach for fame, the senate, the battle-field ! as they looked back, 
it was the past that told of them. 

Sadly, for it was past; but proudly for it had been, their voice 
was heard — 

" We have been in days of old, 
Wise and generous, brave and bold !" 

Then their sons, the active men, whose manly arms and matured 
rriinds sustained the state, came forth, and as they cast their eyes 
around them, in the consciousness of present strength, they said 

•' That which in days of yore ye were, 
We at the present moment are !" 

And having spoken, they gave place, and the children presented 
themselves upon the stage, their young hearts untouched by dis- 
appointment, their faces full of hope and bright with joy ; and 
with clear voice, their vows were offered, 

" Hereafter at our country's call, 
We promise to surpass you all !" 

There was much meaning in this brief play. The past, the pre- 
sent, the future, were thus brought together. The achievements of 
the fathers, the living power of the sons, the promise of the children. 
What the state had to remember, what to depend upon, what to 
expect I It was the voice of years gone, addressing the present ; 
inciting to a growth in wisdom, and to surpassing deeds of valour, 
which coming years should witness, and with which they should be 
crowned. There was, it is true, one purpose shadowed forth in 



4 

f 

which we may not sympathize ; for all that is of war, is unconge- 
nial here. Tiie dust of the field, not of the camp ; the sickle, not 
the sword : bleaching powder, not gun powder ; " mechanic pow- 
ers," not armed forces, betoken our pursuits ; for in them are our 
reliance and our strength. Our national history a single life may 
well nigh compass. But that brief past has laid us under obligations 
to the future, which must be recognised. From time to time these 
obligations should be considered. Nor can more suitable occasions 
oiler than when at the close of these festive gatherings of the friends 
of domestic labour, we meet to take our annual observation, and 
make a new departure. Our position as a people is peculiar. But 
yesterday, our fields were forests. The axe has levelled them, and 
the sword secured to us their use. The generations which have 
passed away had their duties, and have performed them. Ours are 
to be performed, and their performance rests with us, and with us 
alone. These duties are of a character which the past has in some 
respect defined for us. And this will always be more or less observ- 
able, for in each age the point of progress attained, indicates a further 
point to be attained, and somewhat opens the path to be pursued. 
As in journeying over mountains, ,tlie traveller looking beyond 
him upon his winding road a few feet, sees the bold hillside ob- 
struct his path, and knows not whither his true course lies, but 
shall quickly find as he goes on, that the road just travelled will 
itself disclose the outlet ; so to each generation the great duties of 
life which are to be discharged, are made plain by the progress of 
the past. The work of the past has been completed ; but our in- 
heritance was costly as it is rich. Those who bequeathed, pur- 
chased it at no small sum. The ties of blood sundered, the home 
and the hearth-stone left, accustomed comforts put away, an untrod- 
den wilderness and unknown foes encountered, life perilled for un- 
certain good — these made up the first cost. But the outlay did not 
end here. What was sought for conscience sake and had been 
gained, could not be lightly parted with. The strong arm must de- 
fend what the strong heart achieved. Again, the ties of family were 
severed, and under auspices which promised success to those alone 
who knew that " difiicultics show what men are," the responsibili- 
ties ot freedom were assumed. Less than seventy years have 
elapsed, and what a work has been accomplished. In every de- 
partment of industry the great results of labour are enjoyed. 
Agriculture, the oldest and the purest of human callings, has drawn 
to itself the awakened mind of those who till the soil. Throughout 
large portions of our land no stream can pour itself idly into the 
sea: upon its banks the busy man has planted himself, and makes 
available its waters. The quick noise of machinery is heard, where 
but few years ago no sound disturbed the silence which nature 
keeps where man has not approached. The accumulated labour of 
the farmer and the manufacturer, the merchant receives, and the 
freighted ship bears the large surplus to foreign lands, whence other 
products may be returned for their consumption. Where nianu- 



factures flourish, and the field is ploughed, and the sails of com- 
nnerce are spread, the mechanic arts thrive. The inventive skill of 
a people, is in proportion to the call which is made upon it. When, a 
few years ago, our countryman whose stern will has compelled the 
lightning into subjection, sought to exhibit before you the proofs 
of his strange power, his insulated wires were laid beneath the wa- 
ters connecting Castle Garden with Governor's Island. It was a 
moment of keen interest for him and for you. But as he was yet 
beginning, a vessel by accident destroyed a portion of his conductors, 
and the experiment failed. "In the moments of mortification," writes 
Professor Morse, " in a sleepless night I devised a plan i'or avoiding 
such accidents in future, by so arranging my wires along the banks 
of the river, as to cause the water itself to conduct the electricity 
across." Curiosity induced Franklin to fly his kite. He wished to 
know whether the flash and the peal i'rom the cloud were caused 
by the same forces which were confined in the Leyden jai-. Ac- 
cident at an earlier time disclosed the truth, that friction imparted 
to certain bodies the power of attraction. But neither curiosity nor 
accident has given to American genius its strongest impulse. When 
the want has been felt, thought has removed it. And now the fact 
is ascertained, that when man would make the lightning his mes- 
senger, he may compel the river to give it free passage. 

By the light which falls from the past upon the present, we must 
read our duty as a Government and as a people. Agriculture, 
manufactures, commerce, the mechanic arts ! What have they 
done for us? What rather have they not done for us! They are 
children of one household, and the head of the house should care for 
them all alike. And thus one duty as a Government is indicated. 
Excessive legislative interference with individual labour, is hurtful 
and not helpful to the people. Unequal legislation must be invi- 
dious, where equal interests are involved ; and although the full 
grown man needs not the nursing which the child requii-es, yet the 
wise parent will guard with jealous care against the charge of par- 
tial patronage. At an early period of our history, the fiscal weak- 
ness of the Government made it necessary that a line of policy 
should be marked out, whose immediate consequence was to create 
a commerce, and to encourage and direct the employment of capi- 
tal at home. But it has been since the termination of the last w-ar 
with Great Britain, (let it be the prayer of every good man that it 
may be permanently our last war,) that by the concurring action of 
legislation and enterprise, our commercial interests have been en- 
abled to reach their present stature. But neither legislation, nor 
seamen, nor shipping, nor capital, nor their united power could have 
attained for us our commercial eminence, if the plough and the loom 
had been idle. It is our soil that makes the sea of value to us. 
There are, we know, some seas which our will has converted into 
soils, and our seamen till them ; nor would it become one who lives 
where the harpoon- plough is used, to forget the seaman farmer, who 
labours upon the waters by day and by night throughout the year, 



who reaps where he has not sown, and gathers where he has not 
strawcd ; whose staple crop is whales, whose works are try works 
at ihe hest. So intimately connected is the welfare of those great 
departments of human pursuit, which we at this time represent, that 
in determining the claims upon us in behalf of one, we set forth sub- 
stantially the demands of all. And so our first duly springs from that 
fact of fellowship. Where all are brethren, the love of brethren 
should exist. Commerce unites these interests and makes them one. 
Wherever more is made by the hand of man than can be appro- 
priated to the supply of his own immediate wants, that surplus be- 
comes the subject of exchange. The comforts or the wants ol life 
unsupplied at home are thus provided. From tlie first barter ex- 
changes of the product of the soil for the simplest articles of skill 
which social life demands, to those giant enterprises which circle 
the earth, calling to our use all that the world knows of luxury or 
science, making the civilization of all preceding time tributary to 
us, the circuit of the merchant extends over the whole land, and up- 
on every ocean our commerce prevails. No class of men are so 
high in the social scale as to be above its sphere of action. All 
ranks ol" society and all regions ol' the world are impressed by its 
energy. The wealth of the nation rests on its successful enterprise. 
If at once the avenues of commerce should be closed and its ships 
dismantled, the whole land would be stricken with paralysis. Each 
of the thousand channels through which labour flows would be 
narrowed. These considerations justify the regard in which the 
peaceful pursuits of connnerce aie held among us. Peaceful they 
must be, for commerce resting upon contract presupposes peace. 
But if the prosperity of our country is based on its successful com- 
merce, that success is not self dependent. Commerce leans upon 
the farmer and the manufactiner, and while she enriches them, draws 
from them her own support. The merchant exports, buys and sells, 
but does not make. He uses what others have made, and do not 
need. If the farmer did not produce or the manufacturer create 
more than he consumed, there could be no subject for commerce to 
act upon. The people that are unable to send abroad the products 
of their soil orol their skill, to procure with them articles of foreign 
growth or industry, must either be drained of their precious metals, 
or live destitute of what may not be supplied by their own strength. 
Accumulation, then, underlies commerce, but that rests upon la- 
bour. Here we have reached the foundation principle — labour, 
human labour 1 And better foundation need not be laid. It is of 
divine appointment, and its uses are divine. 

" Man must labour, nought is sleeping 
III ilic dininiesi, brigirt'st zone, 
From ilie worm of pn iil'al creeping 
To the cherub on his ihronc !" 

He that will not labour, or that may not so use his hand or his head 
as to dr) somewhat toward the supply of some want, moral, mental 
or physical, is a half-man at most. His horse is of more service in 



the world than he. But it is not to be forgotten that head labour 
is as worthy as hand labour. Commerce depends upon the one as 
much as upon the other. And so does agriculture, and so do the 
arts. It is the recognition of this truth, and its practical application 
to the condition of labouring men, that should constitute the present 
work of those who from the labouring man derive their wealth, and 
those multiform blessings which wealth throws around them. Here 
is detected the great duty that has been all too much overlooked, 
which, by reason of what has been done, the present age demands 
of us. Of what avail is it that our bags are filled with gold, that 
our warehouses bend beneath the pressure of their goods; that our 
ships connect us with the world, pouring our treasures upon foreign 
soils, and returning richer treasures for our consumption? The ag- 
gregate wealth of the nation is enlarged, and individual possessions 
rival the opulence of royalty. But what is the condition of the peo- 
ple — of the hundreds of thousands who create — the grower of grain, 
the operative mechanic, the workman in the factory, the appren- 
tice? This question should be kept in mind until the answer shall 
not imply a duty unperformed. Before any effective step can be 
taken in their behalf, that prejudice must be encountered and re- 
moved, that the work of the hand is more productive than that of 
the mind. The thinking man appreciates at once the surpassing 
productiveness of mental labour. He that stands behind the plough 
does well ; and so did he do well, whose mind contrived the plough 
with which the soil is turned. Let not the hand say to the head 
"what doest thou?" nor the head to the hand "what doest thou?" 
For God has given to every man both hand and head. But these 
considerations may more properly be pressed in another connection. 
I was stating the dependence, one upon the other, of those 
branches of our industry for whose protection your noble Institute 
was founded, with a view of showing, that as their interests were 
joint and their action upon us united, so they demand of us the per- 
formance of certain duties which concern them all. We are, as a 
nation, and must be, if true to ourselves, emphatically an agricultural 
people. With the exception of some portion of the northern states, 
where granite crops are raised, and ice is grown for exportation, 
and of some sections of the Atlantic coast, there can not be found a 
land where Providence points more emphatically to the sickle and 
the plough. There were in the United States, during the last 
year, no less than seven hundred and twenty-nine millions of bushels 
of grain raised upon our farms ; and of tliese, nearly seventy-five 
millions have been raised in this state. This amount has been as- 
certained, and falls short, undoubtedly, of the whole crop. Beside 
these, the tabular estimates which have been published state that 
17,715,000 tons of hay have been cut; that of tobacco, 160,705,000 
pounds have been raised; that 872,107,000 pounds of cotton have 
been grown; and 111,759,000 pounds of rice; and 201,107,000 
pounds of sugar ; and last, and least in quantity — though our fair 
friends will think first in quality and of greatest value — that 390,790 



pounds of silk have been produced for their consumption. These 
constituted the crop of the last year. But these do not fill up the 
measure of our farming industry ; for there are cattle upon more 
than a thousand hills, and the various articles which they lavishly 
supply, in life and in death, largely increase the aggregate of the 
annual tribute which the farmer exacts from the soil he cultivates. 
Nor can this aggregate be diminished, if the privileges of our con- 
dition are not abused. Of our institutions we are naturally and 
justly proud; for they are the work of our own hands. There 
is this difference between us and most of our trans-Atlantic breth- 
ren: that with them, their institutions make the men, but here, our 
men have made their institutions. It is possible that we are too 
prone to magnify them. Those who " kneel before the king" charge 
this offence upon us. It may be a just charge. They partake of 
our own imperfections. Until man ceases to be human, no form of 
government or institution of society can be perfected by him. We 
believe that something has been done, when man may stand up- 
right and worship God as he shall choose — when he may work and 
" shall receive his own reward according to his own labour ;" when 
he may speak, and fear no man, so long as he shall wrong no man ; 
when, being wronged, the laws afford him suitable and quick re- 
dress; when the man of one dollar, who is true to himself, is more 
esteemed than the man of a million dollars who is false ; when 
laws are equal ; when, not wealth, nor social elevation, nor acci- 
dent of birth, nor tenure of office — but Truth, holds the scale; 
where Justice dwells. If these things are so among us, something 
has been done ; — not all, however ; for where free institutions have 
been planted, man has a right to look for better fruit than "bonds !" 
The tree of liberty should not be girdled by a chain ! But we bide 
God's time, knowing that out of evil He educeth good. But whe- 
ther we may or may not be chargeable with extravagant self-love 
when we speak of our form of government, of our institutions, of 
our laws, of anything that we ourselves have designed or ordained, 
we subject ourselves to no such charge in describing the varied 
beauties of our land, the versatile productiveness of its soil, its rich 
mountain regions and broad valleys, where, away from the rude 
clashing of rival interests, our farmers pursue their pure and health- 
ful calling. Where has God bestowed upon his children such a 
heritage as we enjoy ! Of this we may surely boast. But as we 
survey this broad extent and these boundless resources of our land, 
where climates rival soils in rich variety ; her mountains clasping 
the heavens, her green fields waving in the sunlight, her borders 
girded by the ocean, her bosom severed by mighty and rushing 
rivers and pierced by lakes, themselves ocean-like ; and more than 
all, remember that her sons are free — subject to no restraints, ame- 
nable to no laws, accountable to no tribunals not self-imposed and 
instituted, we are constrained to acknowledge the fearful trust, and 
to seek the duties it involves: for neither country, nor institutions, 
nor diverse endowments, shall redeem us from strict account. 



Of the great and growing amount of agricultural produce which 
the different sections of our land afford, what, and how, and where 
is the consumption ? 

First, at home ! for nineteen millions of men are to be sustained, 
and can obtain sustenance from no foreign source. The farmer 
feeds the country. His unostentatious labour makes the heart of 
the land to beat with life. But his surplus food would be of little 
worth if no market were open to him except that which he himself 
could find. His sphere is at home. It is there his virtues shine. 
He thrives not in the din which men make, but in the quiet which 
God has stamped on his creation. When the harvest has been 
gathered in, and the granaries bend under their weight, and the 
work of the farmer has ended, the merchant and the ship stand 
ready, and with quick haste the varied products are scattered upon 
the wings of the wind and steam, by river and by lake, along ihe 
iron road or upon the ocean wave, throughout our own borders, and 
wherever upon the earth there are men to be supplied. Such are 
the calling of the farmer and the aids the merchant renders him. 
Is it not passing strange that where interests so intertwined are 
manifest, aught of jealous feeling should put asunder what has been 
thus joined together? There is with us a singular closeness and 
unity between these leading pursuits. For the commerce of most 
vital import to us as a nation striving for individual and aggregate 
advancement, for the attainment and security of solid comfort, is not 
that whose stage is the world, but that whose design and scope is 
confined at home. You live here in the focus of commercial light 
and heat. The keen contest for mastery in the difficult career of 
life has secured for you the wreath of the victor. We yield the 
palm to you with one voice. Your rich city is our queen of com- 
merce. She stands upon her own proud monument. But its base 
rests on the soil we tread upon. The farmer by his hard toil has 
worked for you ; the manufacturer, who from the raw material 
has wrought out his fabrics by a magic whose quick and potent 
spells would but a few years back in the history of the world have 
invoked the ban of witchcraft; and the genius of mechanical indus- 
try, warmed into life and rendered strong and active by the de- 
mands which the farmer and the loom have created — these all have 
worked for you, and at your hands claim encouragement, protec- 
tion, patronage. 

There have existed commercial cities whose bright career has 
startled the generations that beheld their growth, which have been 
made great by foreign enterprise. About three thousand years ago 
Carthage was built. A wandering queen landed with her retinue 
upon a small isthmus, scarcely three miles broad, near a bold pro- 
montory which divides the southern shore of the Mediterranean. 
Her Canaanitish ancestors had left their homes when Joshua led 
his hosts through the divided waters. She fled from the cruel op- 
pression of her brother, to found upon the African coast a nation 
that should rival Rome in great possessions. For her first " real 

2 



10 

estate" Dido is said to have paid even less than the sharpest wnile 
man of modern days allowed the Indian for his inheritance. For a 
small consideration she bargained lor as much land as the hide of 
an ox would compass. Her simple customers, who deserved the 
cow-hide rather, readily agreed. But the Tyrian exile, bringing to 
her aid the mechanic arts, caused the skin to be cut into long strips, 
and so enclosed a territory whose breadth satisfied her and quite 
astonished them. In this branch of business no man has yet out- 
Didoed the queen of Carthage. In commerce Carthage had no 
rival. Her marine was placed by old historians above that of the 
world beside. All the ports of the Mediterranean were familiar to 
her, and were visited for purposes of traffic. From the farthest 
east then known, to regions in the west, beyond which no Columbus 
had explored, her husy mariners traversed. The mercantile skill 
and success of the Carlhagenian extorted praise from the father of 
history. But it was not to domestic agriculture that she was in- 
debted. Her merchants enjoyed the carrying trade of the world. 
To her manufactures and her skill in the mechanical arts she owed 
much, and from her Tyrian ancestry derived that genius which com- 
pelled the Roman historians to designate as Punic the most remark- 
able results of inventive skill. But although domestic agriculture 
contributed so little to her growth, it would be difficult to estimate 
the value to her of agricultural industry; for she availed herself of 
the produce of the world, and by consummate skill made other gra- 
naries answer to her call. But for the successful prosecution of our 
commerce, our own resources are sufficient. We need no Sicilian 
or Sardinian colonies. Within ourselves we possess all that soil or 
climate may afford for domestic use or foreign export. What they 
supply, however, would quickly and inevitably compose a stock 
which commerce could not easily dispose of, if from our own shores 
the raw material and that alone were to be shipped. And thus the 
necessity exists lor the protection and encouragement here at our 
own doors of the third of those great interests, whose triple alliance 
shall confirm and establish each other, and can alone perfect our 
self relying strength. For no nation is independent whose essential 
wants are unsup})lied at home. Nor has the lesson of the past been 
learned, if we are not yet convinced that tlie people who only raise 
but do not make, are in no condition to deal on equal grounds with 
foreign industry. If the physical strength of our nation should be 
expended on the soil, not only would the accessible markets abroad 
be overstocked, but the muscle and sinew of our men would be 
forced to wage an unequal war with the half paid labour of the 
world beside. 

Such is not the destiny which God has marked out for us, if we 
use his gifts aright ; for not reason alone, but nature, would condemn 
us, if as a people in very truth we take no thought wherewithal we 
shall be clothed. The thousand water falls, whose voices chorus 
the music of the forests, would condemn us ; for their significant 
notes have not fallen upon dead ears. We hav3 understood their 



11 

ineaning as plainly as if the genius whom the old mythologies 
placed over them, should rise from iheir green banks to interpret it 
in literal speech. These running rivers were made for human use, 
as truly as the soils they nourish. The poet who dreams beside the 
brooks may sorrow if the discord of earthly machinery shall inter- 
rupt the song of the stream ; but the man — if he be poet too — in that 
machinery itself, complete in all its parts, and by volition seeming 
to perform its work, coming in aid of the running waters, and en- 
abling them to minister in a new form to human wants, shall read a 
perfect poem, the great idea of which God gave to man. 

In respect to this great interest which has within a few years past 
absorbed such vast amounts of capital, and controlled to such ex- 
tent human labour, it is not singular, perhaps, that the opinions of 
practical statesmen have varied, and that even now such diverse 
views are entertained by men who, with equal honesty of purpose, 
would promote the public good. It was but sixty-four years ago 
that Thomas Jefferson said, " Such is our attachment to agriculture, 
and such our preference for foreign manufactures, that, be it wise or 
unwise, our people will certainly return as soon as they can to the 
raising raw materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures 
than they are able to execute themselves." 

But sixty-four years, when the wurld moves by machinery, is a 
Methuselah's life; and if that eminent philosopher had anticipated 
the realities which these days disclose, he had also foreseen how ad- 
mirably, under his own institutions, the finest manufactures of Europe 
might be rivalled by a people whose attachment to agriculture re- 
mained unshaken. 

Facts are surer guides than theories can be. 

" Experience is by indusUy achieved, 
And perfccied by the swift coLirse of time." 

What the measure of protection is that Government may most 
wisely extend, it is no part of my present purpose to consider. But 
two conclusions the past has established ; that a permanent and steady 
policy should be pursued, and that protection as such should be so ap- 
plied, that the favour granted may not prejudicially afl^ect interests 
equally important, and deserving equal consideration. 

Of the value of our manufactures as a means of supplying our 
home wants, no diflference of opinion can exist. Our experience has 
been too recent and too impressive, not to have convinced us that 
the same parental care with which other nations have uniformly 
guarded the labour of the subject, must be assumed and felt by our 
own toward that of the citizen, if the citizen and the subject are to 
trade together upon terms of reciprocal advantage. Such consid- 
erations^concern us at present, only as they tend to make plain the 
intimate union of those interests which this Institute would encour- 
aire. I do not believe in the truth of the position, that if the manu- 
facturer is helped, the merchant or the farmer is by consequence 
hurt. 



12 

That partial legislation is possible, we know ; but that because the 
life and health of one was preserved, the others must fall sick, is a 
theory all fnncy-built. For what are our manufactures wanted ? That 
labour may be profitably employed ; that all the people shall not, in the 
words of Mr. Jefferson, return to the raising of raw materials; that 
our citizen producer shall not be at the mercy of the subject manu- 
facturer ; that we may not be for ever compelled to exchange raw 
material, which is cheap, being mainly the product of labour, for the 
same material, after foreign mind and skill have quadrupled its 
worth ; that so we may not by compulsion pay a bounty upon 
foreign intelligent skill. Have we not mind lying fallow, and skill 
which only craves opportunity ? Have not our waters head enough 
to turn machinery? Must we too go to the river Jordan? Are 
not Abana and Pharpar as good as the waters of Israel? 

We have sincerest respect for the surpassing energy with which 
England, in one sense foreign, yet in the highest and truest no 
stranger to us, has pressed onward in her career. She has marched 
with giant stride toward the fulfilling of her destiny. In looking 
upon her, we may remember that it is '• excellent to have a giant 
strength ;" but must not forget " how tyrannous 'twould be to use 
it like a giant." Our manufactures were born of our necessities. 
It was because food could not cover the nakedness of the land that 
the citizen farmer made cloth. Timely encouragement and endea- 
vour, undismayed by reverse, have already won success ; and now 
the manufacturer seeks for his material from the soil which is tilled ; 
from the buried ore exposed to view; from the forests that are 
levelled ; from the seas that are explored ; from inanimate and in- 
organic matter, and from all grades of life below our own. 

Facts yearly pressed upon our notice demonstrate the great and 
growing demand that, by reason of these nurseries of creative force, 
exists for all products which directly sustain life, and which, by the 
agency of steam and the application of skill, are turned to man's ac- 
count. The surest guaranty of peace that any people can have, 
until peace shall be loved for its own sake more honestly than among 
the nations it has been hitherto, is the possession, within itself, ol' 
those means of defence, and of support, which may enable it to 
stand self-poised and self-reliant. With an agricultural strength 
competent to meet promptly all demands upon it, and manufacturing 
industry and power equal to any emergency, while we cherish, upon 
principle, good-will toward men, we may rest assured that occa- 
si(»ns of offence will less frequently arise and more quickly be re- 
moved. 

The energy which has recently advanced so rapidly these indus- 
trial pursuits, has given an impulse to the mind of our people, which 
has filled the land wiih proofs of their inventive genius. From the 
valuable report of Mr. Ellsworth, we learn that there have been in 
the United States, prior to January, 1845, fourteen thousand and 
twenty-lour patents issued, five hundred and two of which were 
granted during the present year. In 1841, one thousand and forty- 



13 

five applications for patents were made at Washington. Of the 
five hundred and forty-three applicants who were refused, probably 
the far greater number were ignorant that the principle of their in- 
ventions had been earlier ascertained. They were their inventions, 
none the less, truly ; and if to these it were possible to add the many 
improvements in machinery, of more or less value, the use of which 
has not been secured to the inventor by patent, the aggregate of in- 
ventive skill among us for the last twelve months would betoken an 
energy of thought which no nation upon earth has rivalled. 

It would be a hard task to enumerate the uses to which the few 
elementary mechanical powers have been applied since the com- 
mencement of the present century. Machinery has supplanted hu- 
man labour everywhere. All things which necessity demands or 
luxury solicits, the machine makes. It wards off from man the heat 
of summer, and protects him from the cold. It supplies him with 
food and raiment. It ministers to his intellectual wants — laying 
open before him all the ways of knowledge. If he would lie down, 
it makes and furnishes his couch. If he would move, it lifts him 
up — bearing him with the speed of thought where he would be 
borne. The powers of nature are constrained to serve freely and 
without price when man by machinery invokes them. The waters 
are made to work. The wind cannot blow where it listeth. The 
quick lightning has been compelled to come and to go, and to do 
errands for its unrelenting master. How extensively electricity 
may be available upon the farm, we cannot yet foresee. The idea 
of this use of it belongs to a lady, who poured electric fluid from her 
conservatory into her terrace through a wire, and the grass, to her 
amazement, grew green in winter, and the snow was melted from 
the surface, while all surrounding vegetation was stiff and white. 
Upon this hint, aiier some few years, a thoughtful agriculturist 
acted, and by a simple process conducting electricity from the air 
to the roots of plants, demonstrated that this invisible power might 
be successfully applied to the uses of the farm. 

And now, as I am speaking, our newspapers, which have this ad- 
vantage over electricity, that nothing is so isolated that they can- 
not reach it, are telling us that in your neighbouring city of Philadel- 
phia a musical instrument has been invented upon new principles — 
" the active agent being electro-magnetism, which, passing through 
wires, breathes forth sounds equaling the iEolian harp in softness, 
and rivalling the organ in the distinctness of its notes." And so it 
seems to have become a literal truth, that by the agency of human 
will, acting through simple machines of human contrivance, the 
lightning, this mightiest of nature's forces, may be so tamed for ser- 
vice that it will work in the garden for the farmer — making his ve- 
getables grow, or play in the parlour for his wife — putting her to 
sleep with its sweet music ! 

Without pausing to calculate the market value of these singular 
appropriations of the energies of nature, what room for reflection is 
there in the fact that man is able thus to seize and convert to his own 



14 

use the subtilest elements ! How by a little thought lie multiplies 
his strength ! Standing alone, who so weak, so helpless as he. Yet 
has he reduced the world to himself. Without external aid he 
could accomplish nothing. But he does accomplish all things, com- 
pelling all to be his agents and to work his will. 

The arts are the humanizers of life; all that is not of the earth in 
man has been elevated as they have advanced. They have been the 
handmaids of religion, and have done her good service in the world, 
the ruder and the finer arts alike. All arts are fine arts, and the 
useful the finest. We look upon the statue of an old master, or up- 
on the breathing marble of Powers, and our hearts swell with de- 
light, for we see the truth embodied there. So also is the truth em- 
bodied in the nicely adjusted machine which deep thought conceived 
and exquisite skill wrought out. The steam-ship is a work of fine 
artas truly as a picture of the waters she moves upon or the shores 
she visits; and he who fashioned it, adapting each nicely adjusted 
part so as best to efTcct the end proposed, has as clear an eye for the 
beautiful and the true, as the artist who breathes out his soul in the 
creations of the pencil. And so in this outer world, where nature 
by her "peaceful strivings and doings," addresses us in that com- 
bined "outline of cloud, and sky, and sea, and coast, sleeping in the 
morning or the evening light." 

"The hills 
Rock ribbed and ancient as the sun — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between 
The venerable woods — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste !" 

Here are pictures which Zimmerman may not equal. But more 
exquisite than these is this machine — the human hand — the sup- 
pliant servant of the mind ! 

But it is the mechanic arts, as encouraged by the demands of the 
farmer, the manulacturer, and the merchant, that interest us now. 
The machine is the instrument wiih which the art is carried 
on. It is itself a work of art, contrived to increase human power 
and enlarge its sphere of action. By its aid a single man works 
with an hundred hands, and so becomes fifty men, and ceases to 
be one. But if mechanic arts are not fostered, inventive skill would 
be unknown, for its want would not be felt. Thought is the parent 
of invention — not necessity. Necessity awakens thought; and so it 
will be found that in those arts which have not been successfully 
pursued, for lack of proper instruments, machines, tools, the want 
has aroused thought, and the needed invention has followed. At 
the close of an interesting report made by Mr. Charles M. Keller 
to the late Superintendent of Patents, this fact is stated, that *' those 
branches of the arts which have been in a prosperous condition 
during the past two years, as for instance cotton manufactures, 
have received a smaller number of contributions from inventors, than 
those which have been in a depressed slate, as civil engineering." 



15 

In proportion, then — and here is the point which I would now es- 
tablish — as the need is felt of improved machinery, inventive skill 
is developed and mechanic arts advance; and that necessity is re- 
cognised in the precise proportion that commerce and those asso- 
ciate pursuits, whose joint progress we are assembled to promote, 
are encouraged by our government and ourselves. 

Thus it is apparent how, in our country, and under our institutions, 
these great interests, by mutual action, advance each other. And 
so that duty before alluded to, results of balanced and impartial 
patronage. 

But the past imposes another work upon the present. And all 
imperfectly as I have discharged thus far the office which your fa- 
vour, not my deserving, has assigned me, you would esteem it blame- 
worthy if that were not considered. For who are they that con- 
stitute the strength of the prominent branches of human industry? 
Who fill the granaries of the land, and make available the loom, and 
work out in their thousand lowly ways the varied defences, and 
comforts, and luxuries of life? The results of labour are all around 
us. We see them in the temple of God, in the palace of the rich 
man, in the iron ship, in the magnificent works which adorn your 
city, and in that especially by which the waters of a river are con- 
jured from their bed to supply your wants. 

But where is the labourer, and what is done for him ? We claim 
with earnest voice protection for ourselves, and legislation responds 
to the call. Our manufactures are extended, and commerce multi- 
plies her sails, and in their growth, agriculture and the arts live and 
thrive. But the great end of this is national and individual wealth; 
and that end has been gained, and therein we rejoice. But the suc- 
cess which has marked our progress, and crowned our work, is it- 
self a trust, and its responsibilities we may not fly from if we would. 

Men who are endeavouring by legislative enactment and indi- 
vidual eflfort to meliorate the condition of the labouring classes, 
complain, and perhaps with truth, that the rates of compensation 
enjoyed so poorly remunerate them for the stipulated work ; and if 
we go into the field or the workshop to ascertain what is done for 
those whose lives are expended in producing the first results of la- 
bour, we may find much room for sad speculation. There is some- 
thing wrong here, that requires the application of thought for its 
removal. 

But there are considerations which more appropriately address 
themselves to us here and now. Gathered together for purposes 
national in their character, it is not enough that we congratulate 
ourselves on that proof of success which great possessions furnish. 
There are other interests than those which the " dollar " represents ; 
and though uncounted, thousands reward our efTorts, we have failed, 
have we not, if we have kept out of sight the claims of those, with- 
out whose labour-spent lives we had been poor indeed. 

The great work which the present has to perform, is to contribute 
of its strength to lift up the labourer, and to make him more and 



16 

more a man. The cultivated farmer is better than the cultivated 
farm. An instructed mechanic who apjDreciates the principles of 
his trade, applying science lo labour, is as removed from the un- 
taught workman whose only knowledge is to use his tools, as the 
dead machine from the cunning hand that formed it. Nor is there 
room to doubt that from the classes of labouring men themselves, 
upon the farm, in the workshop and the factory, a cry is coming up 
for help to those who alone may aid them. In the promotion of 
agricultural schools and associations, of apprentices' libraries, of 
mechanics' institutes, we read the signs. They are not to be mis- 
taken. They mark one era in our history that is full of promise. 
Never before have such things been seen as now. But of himself, 
the labouring man can do little. From his youth up, the hours of 
his life have been toil-worn. He needs encouragement, assistance, 
sympathy. And he looks for these things from you. Shall he look 
in vain ? But what is to be done? That is an important question ; 
but after all it is not there the great battle is to be fought. When 
conviction is heartfelt that something should be done, the work is 
iialf accomplished. It is when the feeling is skin deep only, and is not 
conviction, that difficulties start up and questions are put. He who 
is thoroughly persuaded that he has a work to do, is more than half 
inlbrmed how he is to do it. But lo us the question is answered. 
We know what is to be done. From the highest rank in society to 
the humblest walk, a cord extends, that unites the two extremes. 
The one is to be elevated, or both must sink. 

Labour demands knowledge, and the cry must be heeded. Not 
the knowledge of books, nor yet of men, but that knowledge of the 
principle of things applicable to itself in its various phases and 
ibrms, whereby it shall become labour effective, and not labour 
lost. We need not invite the labourer into the fields of general 
learning, nor are we called upon to enter them ourselves. But in 
those departments which illustrate his pursuits, it is as right, yes, 
and as needful, too, that the operative upon the farm should be in- 
structed, as that the professional man should be wise in the learning 
of his school. We recognise our duties to the young, and in the 
common schools established and spread throughout the land, we 
testify our faith in education. Let that faith be unshaken, for our 
hopes rest on the young. But that is not enough. The professional 
student is urged onward by richly endowed colleges and learned 
lectures, where experiment refutes error and establishes truth. So 
let the mechanic and the agricultural student be helped onward in 
their career. We should not willingly commit our rights or health 
to the care of one unprepared by diligent study for his work ! Is 
no preparation requisite by him who would solicit from the earth its 
treasures ? The physician by careful labour investigates the causes 
of disease, and by minute analysis defines the action of each remedy. 
He studies the physical constitution of his patient, and not blindly, but 
with thought and foresight acts. 

The farmer is the physician of the soil — the doctor of grains and 



17 

grasses. He should know -when and why to drain off hurtful fluids, 
to neutralize noxious elements, and correct destructive tendencies. 
He must learn to knock reverently at the door where nature keeps 
her mysteries concealed from vulgar gaze. But if he do thus knock, 
it shall be opened to him. In your own state, not less than five hundred 
thousand men compose her agricultural strength. Of these how few 
there are who listen with living ear to nature's teachings. Yet her 
laws are simple and uniform, and from the diligent inquirer she 
never turns away. Between the proud tree of the forest, the mon- 
arch of a century, and the constitution of the soil which nourishes 
its roots, there is a close and immediate connection. But centuries 
passed away, and the oak, and the beech, and the pine, in their seve- 
ral generations, flourished and decayed, before this simple truth 
was revealed to man. Between the solid trunk and spreading 
branch, and the grains and grasses that grow upon the same soil, 
the same intimate and beautiful relationship exists. 

The scientific agriculturist, who ascertains what constituents 
compose his soils, and the various grains which he would grow, has 
in his own hand the law which God established, and by which he 
works in his creation ; for not a blade of grass nor blushing flower 
springs up by the wayside, that owes not its life, and its beauty, and 
its fragrance to laws which He ordained, but which by earnest seek- 
ing man may find out. The ploughman who whistles as he works 
" for want of thought," will not read the book before him, for he 
does not know that it is opened. It is a sealed volume to him, 
while all the time to the open eye its pages glow with beauty and 
instruction. Under the surface of the earth there is a soil where 
other elements exist in different combinations, and with his plough 
he turns it up to the fresh air, mixing the two soils together, so that 
each shall supply the other the strength it needs. But of the pro- 
cess going on before his eye, he is ignorant, and ignorant without 
fault. From early childhood he has awaked day by day to the 
same dull round of toil; suspended only by the welcomiC night, that 
his wearied body might be strengthened for renewed labour. 

But his children may know, for now the time is at hand when the 
claims of labour shall be heard. 

" Far back in the ages 

The plough with wreathes was crowned, 
The hand of kings and sages 

Entwined the chaplet round, 
Till men of spoil disdained the toil 

By which the world was nourished, 
And dews of blood enriched the soil 

Where green their laurels flourished ; 
Now, the world her fault repairs ! 

The guilt that stains her story, 
And weeps her crimes, amid the cares 

That formed her earliest glory." 

But her earliest glory did not shine with the lustre that shall 
crown her brow when science shall weave the wreath and the la- 
bourer shall wear it. 

3 



18 

There are in other lauds, esteemed free, and favoured above most 
of the nations of the earth, obstacles which the constitution of so- 
ciety presents to those who acknowledge the rights of labour, and 
advocate its claims. Where men arc classed by birth, and titled 
proprietors own the soil, which descended from their fathers, and 
must be transmitted unalienated to the generations that shall suc- 
ceed, the lot of the labourer may be with difficulty improved. But 
here, thank God, we are not cursed by institutions which stamp the 
freeman as a slave because he tills the ground. From his humble 
cottage, the farmer's boy may walk by quick step into the high places 
of honourable trust, nor is there any home so lowly that may not 
send forth its son to judge or rule the land. With us the labourer is 
also the freeholder; and that one fact removes us by a gulf world- 
wide from the proudest nations of the earth. To own the soil he 
cultivates is the rare privilege which our labourer enjoys. The 
home he lives in is his own. From the hearth-stone around which 
parent and child gather, and from which the prayer and the hymn 
ascend, no man shall separate him. The trees that he plants, ripen 
for him their fruits. The flocks that he feeds, yield to him their 
fleece. The grass grows for his use, and the brook that murmurs 
by his door no power in the land may turn from its shallow bed. 

There is in the condition of our labouring classes no obstacle in 
the way of those who seek their elevation; but all those privileges 
which they enjoy, not only prepare them to aid in the great work, 
but furnish us with stimulating motive for exertion. That which 
is true of the labourer in the field, applies with equal force to the 
operative in the factory, and the artisan in the shop. What of 
wealth we enjoy is traceable directly to their labours, and at our 
hands they jointly and justly demand consideration, sympathy, in- 
struction. 

In this Institute, whose eighteenth anniversary has now been held, 
and to whose great and growing usefulness the industry of the 
country bears witness, we see a pledge that the claims of the Ame- 
rican labourer will not be overlooked. Not from the Empire State, 
but from the Union, the labourer comes up to this high festival. 
The ingenious mechanic, who without your aid might live unknown, 
brings here his oflering, and receives from you the hand of fellow- 
ship. The manufacturer contributes his beautiful creations — the 
works and wonders of machinery and skill. The harvest moon is 
in the full, and by its soft light the farmer bears his fruits. All who 
essay by apt invention to multiply the comforts or the luxuries of 
life, exhibit here their models, and explain their curious mechanism; 
and to all alike, sympathy, encouragement, reward, are here ex- 
tended. Nor may vvc be unmindful of that gentle, loving encour- 
agement which woman grants. Better than all legislative protec- 
tion, is that which the true woman gives to the industry of her land. 
Let her, too, be mindful of them that labour, of their real humanity, 
of their claims to sympathy, and with her persuasive voice assert 
their rights. With such aids the work is well benun. Aijricultural 



19 

schools, the Mechanics' Institute, the lecture-room, the lyceum, the 
library, these are our machinery ; and from the material of native 
mind a fabric shall be wrought richer than cloth of gold. For 

" What constitutes a state 1 
Not high raised battlement and laboured mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned, 

Not bays and broad armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

But men — high-minded men I 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 

In forest, brake or den, 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

Men, who their duties know, 
And know their rights !" 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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